Results tagged “Bloomberg” from WikiLeak

Given the popularity of Peer to Peer (P2P) networks for file sharing and the close links between WikiLeakS.org original web hosts in Sweden and their former links with The Pirate Bay "The world's most resilient bittorrent site", WikiLeakS.org leaked documents have always been available on P2P networks.

gives prominence to some dubious claims by a US based Peer to Peer Network spying company called Tiversa.

Bloomberg and Tiversa provide no evidence of any direct link between the alleged
appearance of the US Military files on incompetently configured personal computer systems running P2P software (in contravention of the applicable computer security policies) and the publication of re-named files on Wikileaks, months or even years later.

The Bloomberg article itself lists the months or sometimes years between the alleged appearance of a few US military documents on P2P networks open to the entire internet, and the publication of what is alleged to be copies of the same versions of those documents on the old, no longer functioning, WikiLeakS.org wiki system.

They cannot have it both ways.

Either it is legal for everyone, including firms like Tiversa to monitor such networks (for money) in bulk, in real time, all over the world, "1.8 billion times a day" by running "rogue" monitoring nodes joined to these P2P networks, or it is not.

To attempt to claim that just because they monitored "4 IP address in Sweden", that this is somehow evidence that WikiLeakS.org themselves were trawling for documents on P2P networks, is an incredible double standard, given the amount of such trawling which originates from the USA and even from Tiversa itself.

Tiversa's cause célèbre. was their discovery of the US Presidential helicopter documents, something which strongly implies that they themselves also downloaded copies of such documents, both from the useless US Defense Contractor and from the alleged computer in Iran.

Such activity is itself certainly illegal in many countries and would probably amount to espionage according to the evil Iranian authorities.

Remember there is no proof that the discovery of an alleged download by a particular computer IP address actually means that any human has even noticed or read any such documents, in all likelihood they have not, simply due to the volumes involved - see the various internet snooping projects derived from Echelon by intelligence agencies like the NSA and GCHQ etc and their rivals.

Initially the WikiLeakS.org website just assumed that people would "seed" copies of their published documents into P2P networks. They later started to formally provided Magnet URI links to such documents on their download pages, but of course these are now no longer functional.

Perhaps OpenLeaks.org or any other successors to WikiLeakS.org, if they ever get off the ground, will also seed P2P networks and provide Magnet links as well.

There is a link on the current WikiLeakS.CH website and on its hundreds of risky mirror websites, to a compressed archive of BitTorrent index files, which can be used to download around 20,000 documents which have been published on WikiLeakS.org i.e. not the big "Bradley Manning" disclosures, which got their own dedicated web sites.

However, if you are planning to "research" these for your forthcoming blog or mainstream media article, tv documentary, book, film etc. remember your IP address will be tracked by Tiversa and other private sector and government spies.

Given the legally toxic nature of some of these WikiLeakS.org documents, depending on the legal jurisdiction you fall under, you may be breaking various laws by downloading or possessing copies of these documents e.g. government official secrecy, espionage, lèse majesté, copyright, contempt of court etc. . You should probably keep any files you download in an encrypted volume using, for example TrueCrypt

WikiLeakS.org has never bothered to provide any such warnings or advice to its readers.

Tags:

About this blog

This blog here at WikiLeak.org (no "S") discusses the ethical and technical issues raised by the WikiLeakS.org project, which is trying to be a resource for whistleblower leaks, by providing "untraceable mass document leaking and analysis".

These are bold and controversial aims and claims, with both pros and cons, especially for something which crosses international boundaries and legal jurisdictions.

This blog is not part of the WikiLeakS.org project, and there really are no copies of leaked documents or files being mirrored here.

Email Contact

Please feel free to email us your views about this website or news about the issues it tries to comment on:

LeakDirectory.org

Now that the WikiLeakS.org project is defunct, so far as new whistleblower are concerned, what are the alternatives ?

The LeakDirectory.org wiki page lists links and anonymity analyses of some of the many post-wikileaks projects.

There are also links to better funded "official" whistlblowing crime or national security reporting tip off websites or mainstream media websites. These should, in theory, be even better at protecting the anonymity and security of their informants, than wikileaks, but that is not always so.

New whistleblower website operators or new potential whistleblowers should carefully evaluate the best techniques (or common mistakes) from around the world and make their personal risk assessments accordingly.

Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers and Political Dissidents

The WikiLeakS.org Submissions web page provides some methods for sending them leaked documents, with varying degrees of anonymity and security. Anybody planning to do this for real, should also read some of the other guides and advice to political activists and dissidents:

Please take the appropriate precautions if you are planning to blow the whistle on shadowy and powerful people in Government or commerce, and their dubious policies. The mainstream media and bloggers also need to take simple precautions to help preserve the anonymity of their sources e.g. see Spy Blog's Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers - or use this easier to remember link: http://ht4w.co.uk

WikiLeakS Twitter feeds

The WikiLeakS.org website does not stay online all of the time, especially when there is a surge of traffic caused by mainstream media coverage of a particularly newsworthy leak.

Recently, they have been using their new Twitter feeds, to selectively publicise leaked documents to the media, and also to report on the status of routing or traffic congestion problems affecting the main website in Stockholm, Sweden.

N.B.the words "security" or "anonymity" and "Twitter" are mutually exclusive:

Campaign Button Links

Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.

FreeFarid.com - Kafkaesque extradition of Farid Hilali under the European Arrest Warrant to Spain

Parliament Protest blog - resistance to the Designated Area restricting peaceful demonstrations or lobbying in the vicinity of Parliament.

The Big Opt Out Campaign - opt out of having your NHS Care Record medical records and personal details stored insecurely on a massive national centralised database.

Tor - the onion routing network - "Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves."

Home Office Watch blog, "a single repository of all the shambolic errors and mistakes made by the British Home Office compiled from Parliamentary Questions, news reports, and tip-offs by the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs team."